Hi everyone, I am new here. My name is Craig. I used to play online poker for a living. I went full time in 2007 and was forced to stop in 2011 for...obvious sad reasons. Some of my online friends have moved out of the country to continue playing online poker, but I have been reluctant because
A) I own a house here that receives rents, and I really like it!
B) Moving just sucks =(
Live poker is an option, but it's sorta....meh.
I have a degree in Economics however my real world "work" experience is limited to say the least. I have dabbled in a few consulting gigs but nothing major.
I began getting into investing and stuff a few years back; I'd like to think I'm not completely ignorant regarding how money moves through various markets and such, that being said, I still have lots to learn.
The natural progression, in my opinion, was trading. I began researching various trading techniques a year or so ago, and it seems the skill set is very similar to poker. Because of the similarities, I feel it has the potential to be a good fit for me.
So that brings me here. I think a forum of traders would be the best place to learn things. I'm in a weird spot because I hear "you can't beat wall street, they have more information than you, don't compete with the resources and insider knowledge that is not at your disposal."
I find those points valid, however I also used to hear "nothing ever good comes from gambling, only 2% of players are winners, etc"
And I did poker successfully for a living over a statistically significant sample...As you can see, it seems those saying "most lose at poker" are the same ones saying "most lose at trading."
While I believe this to be true, I strongly feel there is value there and since I have a track record of removing liquidity from markets, I think (or at least I'd like to) that it is at least possible.
What does everyone here think?
I do realize that in order to do it for a living you probably need minimum 100kish liquid. It takes money to make money. It seems most trading firms simply operate as a hub for under-capitalized traders? I could be wrong, shrug.
Any information from anyone would be very helpful to me. As you can see, I really can't think of one specific thing to ask any of you, I suppose then I simply want some advice (where to start, reputable firms, optimal techniques :ie pairs trading, arbitrage, etc, things to know.....anything and everything) from people who are better than me at trading.
Side note: DAVID EINHORN ROCKS! (he donates to a charity my sister works for and just banked 4m for them at the 1m buy in tournament at the WSOP)
This post was longer then I meant it to be, I hope there is an ample amount of page breaks for your eyes.
there's a couple other similar threads in here about poker players coming over to trade, you might want to check on those.
don't know if you listen to the 2+2 pokercasts, but there's a bunch of them where i'll listen and say "yup, i can 100% relate that kind of feeling (tilt, forcing things, etc.) to mistakes i've made in trading".
btw, there are a fair number of ppl here who aren't traders but marketers, or wanna-be armchair quarterbacks. lots of the areas remind me more of NVG than anything else.
There's a saying around about "you need 10,000 hours of screen-time" (watching then trading live markets), for this to happen your finances have to be large enough to cover your life expenses for that amount of time.
Then, you'll need some risk-capital, enough of it to make a living after a few years on a reasonable yearly-return%.
You'll have to find your trading style, both time horizon & volatility, corresponding instruments to trade, find "what works" for you (which might not be the same as what works for anyone else), get good at it.
Some will say: "find a mentor", very good advice if the mentor is actually both a profitable trader (ask for trading statements) and a good coach (ask other students).
This is a big commitment (time & money) if you really want to succeed.
BTW, how did you learn & become a pro poker-player?
In the beginning of the online poker boom, circa 2005, a lot of guys discovered multitabling online poker was profitable because a) lots of newbies and b) you could smooth out variances by playing premium hands over many tables. It got harder later on, when existing players adjusted and new players couldn't easily deposit money. One of the things that evened the playing field, existing online pros started selling their knowledge through online training sites. A real good resource is the 2+2 forums, where there is a ton of hand analysis.
Quote from dom993: BTW, how did you learn & become a pro poker-player?
Another pro gambler here. I would also like to transition into the markets. The main thing is finding a viable edge. It's easier to find and to define an edge in gambling since it's a closed system, but much more difficult in the markets since they are always changing.
The nice thing about the markets is that they scale up to larger amounts of capital, which isn't the case in gambling.
